Plone is the best Content Management System (CMS) around, and WordPress is the best blogging platform in the marketplace. What’s about integrating them ?

Now. If your time budget is in the weeks range, there’s a state-of-the art technique you can apply, described here – a must-read.

But. If you’re in a hurry and just looking at a quick, simple integration, then this howto is right for you.

So here we go.

Problem statement: we wish to integrate Worpress 3.0.1 into an existing Plone 4.0 beta website (say www.example.com) proxied by Apache with virtual hosts. The blog should integrate under the same primary domain (say example.com) so that it can be reached from the navigation tab bar of the main site, and have a consistent style.

Step 1: create a dummy folder in Plone called “blog” and publish it;

Step 2: log out from Plone, then click on the now empty blog folder and save the website homepage from your favorite browser as plone_before.htm;

Step 3: install WordPress 3.0.1 and activate multi-site mode with sub-domain sites;

Step 4: create a WordPress blog with a subdomain such as: wp.example.com;

Step 5: log out from WordPress, then open the empty blog and save the blog homepage from your favorite browser as blog_before.htm;

Step 6: create a child theme of WordPress 3 default theme twentyten called say exampletheme;

Step 7: create a short style.css file  to override the default styles to match the Plone appearance; something like:

/*
Theme Name: Twenty Ten Child - EXAMPLE blog theme
Theme URI: http://example.com/
Author: the WordPress team + me
Author URI: http://www.example.com/
Template: twentyten
Version: 0.1
*/

@import url("../twentyten/style.css");
#wrapper { margin-top: 10px; width: 100%; }
input[type="text"], textarea { padding: 0px; background: #FDFCFA; border: 2px inset; }
#main { width:75%; }
#footer { width:96%; }
#portal-footer { height:14px; }
h1 { font-size:1.5em; }
h3 { font-size:1em; }
.widget-title { font-size:1em; margin-top: 10px; }

Step 8: copy from twentyten into $(WPHOME)/wp-content/themes/exampletheme the files: footer.php, header.php; now compare the plone_before.htm and blog_before.htm files and identify the parts that fit in footer.php and header.php – edit these files and monitor the effects by simply refreshing the blog home (wp.example.com);

Step 9: copy your own logo.png into $(WPHOME)/wp-content/themes/exampletheme, then tweak in header.php the Plone-generated:

<a id="portal-logo" title="Home" accesskey="1" href="http://www.libpf.com">
<img src="http://www.example.com/logo.png" alt="" title="" height="111" width="600" /></a>

into something like:

<a id="portal-logo" title="Home" accesskey="1" href="http://www.example.com/">
<img src="wp-content/themes/exampletheme/logo.png" alt="" title="" height="111" width="600"></a>

Step 10: trick Apache into redirecting the requests for www.example.com/blog to wp.example.com with this rewrite rule:

RewriteRule ^/blog http://wp.example.com [L,R]

Done !

These instructions are for those of you who are in a paper-saving mood, and want to print on the front and the back of each sheet of paper (duplex or “fronte-retro”), but own a cheap one-way printer. [This was tested on a Samsung CLP310N]

The sample is based on a fictional 8 pages A4 document which only has the page numbers (from 1 to 8) displayed in a large font on each page. We want to print it on 4 A4 sheets.

Let’s assume the 4 A4 blank sheets we will use are pre-marked with blue arrows on the front page of each sheet (this is just to keep track of rotations):

1. Place the 4 sheets in a stack with (what will be the front of the first page) upwards in the paper feed bin, with the blue arrow pointing towards the printer:
2. Print odd pages in direct order; the printer will rotate the stack of sheets 180° w.r.t an horizontal axis perpendicular to the blue arrow; the printed sheets will end up with the printed side (the one with the blue arrow) down; the top page on the stack will be the back side of (what will be) the last page, with the printed side (the last of the odd pages, number 7) downwards:
3. Rotate the stack 180° w.r.t a vertical rotation axis perpendicular to the paper sheets, and place the 4 sheets in a stack with (what will be the back of the last page) upwards in the paper feed bin, with the blue arrow pointing towards the printer:
4. Print even pages in reverse order; the printer will rotate the stack of sheets 180° w.r.t an horizontal axis perpendicular to the blue arrow; the printed sheets will end up with the printed side (the one without the blue arrow) down, while the side with the blue arrow (which was printed first) will be up; the top page on the stack will be the front side of the first page, with the previously printed side (the first last of the odd pages, number 2) upwards.

Done !